I HATE YOU
Hollywood News: Joss Whedon Accused of ‘Abusive’ Behavior by Justice League Star Ray "Cyborg" Fisher UPDATE! Ray FIRED from the Flash movie!
- Thread starter playahaitian
- Start date
I HATE YOU
trust me I was trying my BEST to see if these cacs had SOME type of point
cuz we aint going superfriends!
But Teen Titans Go that is STILL in THEIR target demographics era of recognition
and you JOKE
but if Cavill says up up and away while saving some innocent child during some massive fight to calm him?
Watch fan boys have simultaneous orgasms all over twitter
Kevin smith in tears
they HONORING the legacy of superman etc etc
Am I wrong?
I think you COULD do it and not make a "martha" moment
again the boo yeah line was cringe inducing
but in the hands of an actor director and writer COMMITTED to it?
I think it could have worked.
Joss Whedon reportedly threatened Gal Gadot's career during Justice League reshoots
A new report says the Wonder Woman actress disagreed with the new director's take on the character after he replaced Zack Snyder on the 2017 superhero blockbuster.
By Christian Holub
April 06, 2021 at 05:47 PM EDT
Fresh light is being shed on Gal Gadot's reported experience with director Joss Whedon during the making of Justice League.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, actor Ray Fisher laid out in detail his account of the indignities he suffered on set of the superhero blockbuster under Whedon and Warner Bros leadership at the time. Part of that article revealed an alleged "clash" between Gadot and Whedon, who was brought on to finish Justice League after Zack Snyder exited the project due to a family tragedy. Whedon declined to comment for THR's story.
According to THR's reporting, Fisher wasn't the only Justice League star who disagreed with Whedon's approach.
THR quoted "a knowledgeable source" saying that Gadot also had concerns with Whedon's take on Justice League, including "issues about her character being more aggressive than her character in Wonder Woman.
She wanted to make the character flow from one movie to the next." Justice League hit theaters only five months after Wonder Woman.
Gal Godot in Zack Snyder's "Justice League."
"The biggest clash," according to THR's source, came when Gadot pushed back on some new dialogue Whedon had written. In response, the director reportedly "threatened to harm Gadot's career and disparaged Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins."
Neither Whedon nor Gadot confirmed this anecdote on the record to THR, which only quotes an anonymous source. A representative for Whedon declined to comment when reached by EW.
In a statement to THR, Gadot said, "I had my issues with [Whedon] and Warner Bros. handled it in a timely manner."
Previously, the actress said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in December, "I wasn't there with the guys when they shot with Joss Whedon — I had my own experience with [him], which wasn't the best one, but I took care of it there and when it happened. I took it to the higher-ups and they took care of it. But I'm happy for Ray to go up and say his truth."
Representatives for Gadot and Jenkins didn't immediately respond to EW's request for comment.
In a continuation of her relationship with Warner Bros., Gadot starred in Wonder Woman 1984, which is directed by Jenkins and features the actress as the fabled Amazon in her first DC superhero outing since Justice League. It has been one of the top theatrical successes of the COVID-19 era, grossing $45.9 million at the pandemic box office.
Gadot's experiences came to light as Fisher shared his frustrations during the reshoots of Justice League and his dissatisfaction with Warner Bros.' official investigation of the matter since first accusing Whedon last year of "gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable" behavior on the set of the 2017 superhero blockbuster.
In a statement provided to EW, former federal judge Katherine B. Forrest — who led Warner Bros.' official investigation into Fisher's claims — said her investigation involved "more than 80 interviews, the review of thousands of pages of documents, and over 2000 hours of work by me and my colleagues" and that "I found no credible support for claims of racial animus or racial or disability insensitivity."
Whedon had no comment at the time.
An interview with Forbes published in October contained a rare statement from Whedon relating to Justice League accusations.
In the article, Fisher said that he had been "informed" that Whedon had changed the skin tone of a Justice League actor during the editing process.
Whedon responded with a statement saying, "the individual who offered this statement acknowledged that this was just something that he had heard from someone else and accepted as truth, when in fact simple research would prove that it was false. As is standard on almost all films, there were numerous people involved with mixing the final product, including the editor, special effects person, composer, etc. with the senior colorist responsible for the final version's tone, colors, and mood." This accusation isn't discussed in the new THR story.
A new report says the Wonder Woman actress disagreed with the new director's take on the character after he replaced Zack Snyder on the 2017 superhero blockbuster.
By Christian Holub
April 06, 2021 at 05:47 PM EDT
Fresh light is being shed on Gal Gadot's reported experience with director Joss Whedon during the making of Justice League.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, actor Ray Fisher laid out in detail his account of the indignities he suffered on set of the superhero blockbuster under Whedon and Warner Bros leadership at the time. Part of that article revealed an alleged "clash" between Gadot and Whedon, who was brought on to finish Justice League after Zack Snyder exited the project due to a family tragedy. Whedon declined to comment for THR's story.
According to THR's reporting, Fisher wasn't the only Justice League star who disagreed with Whedon's approach.
THR quoted "a knowledgeable source" saying that Gadot also had concerns with Whedon's take on Justice League, including "issues about her character being more aggressive than her character in Wonder Woman.
She wanted to make the character flow from one movie to the next." Justice League hit theaters only five months after Wonder Woman.
Gal Godot in Zack Snyder's "Justice League."
"The biggest clash," according to THR's source, came when Gadot pushed back on some new dialogue Whedon had written. In response, the director reportedly "threatened to harm Gadot's career and disparaged Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins."
Neither Whedon nor Gadot confirmed this anecdote on the record to THR, which only quotes an anonymous source. A representative for Whedon declined to comment when reached by EW.
In a statement to THR, Gadot said, "I had my issues with [Whedon] and Warner Bros. handled it in a timely manner."
Previously, the actress said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in December, "I wasn't there with the guys when they shot with Joss Whedon — I had my own experience with [him], which wasn't the best one, but I took care of it there and when it happened. I took it to the higher-ups and they took care of it. But I'm happy for Ray to go up and say his truth."
Representatives for Gadot and Jenkins didn't immediately respond to EW's request for comment.
In a continuation of her relationship with Warner Bros., Gadot starred in Wonder Woman 1984, which is directed by Jenkins and features the actress as the fabled Amazon in her first DC superhero outing since Justice League. It has been one of the top theatrical successes of the COVID-19 era, grossing $45.9 million at the pandemic box office.
Gadot's experiences came to light as Fisher shared his frustrations during the reshoots of Justice League and his dissatisfaction with Warner Bros.' official investigation of the matter since first accusing Whedon last year of "gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable" behavior on the set of the 2017 superhero blockbuster.
In a statement provided to EW, former federal judge Katherine B. Forrest — who led Warner Bros.' official investigation into Fisher's claims — said her investigation involved "more than 80 interviews, the review of thousands of pages of documents, and over 2000 hours of work by me and my colleagues" and that "I found no credible support for claims of racial animus or racial or disability insensitivity."
Whedon had no comment at the time.
An interview with Forbes published in October contained a rare statement from Whedon relating to Justice League accusations.
In the article, Fisher said that he had been "informed" that Whedon had changed the skin tone of a Justice League actor during the editing process.
Whedon responded with a statement saying, "the individual who offered this statement acknowledged that this was just something that he had heard from someone else and accepted as truth, when in fact simple research would prove that it was false. As is standard on almost all films, there were numerous people involved with mixing the final product, including the editor, special effects person, composer, etc. with the senior colorist responsible for the final version's tone, colors, and mood." This accusation isn't discussed in the new THR story.
Ray Fisher Opens Up About ‘Justice League,’ Joss Whedon and Warners: “I Don’t Believe Some of These People Are Fit for Leadership”
Over the past year, the actor has assailed the filmmaker and studio in harsh-but-cryptic tweets for what he says was racist and inappropriate conduct: "I'm not so indebted to Hollywood that I haven't been willing to put myself out there."
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Ray Fisher Opens Up About 'Justice League,' Joss Whedon and Warners: "I Don't Believe Some of These People Are Fit for Leadership"
by Kim Masters
April 06, 2021, 6:00am PDT
Over the past year, the actor has assailed the filmmaker and studio in harsh-but-cryptic tweets for what he says was racist and inappropriate conduct: "I'm not so indebted to Hollywood that I haven't been willing to put myself out there."
Ray Fisher is ready to talk.
Ever since June 2020, when he fired off a tweet accusing Joss Whedon of "gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable" conduct on the set of Justice League, the 33-year-old actor has used social media and a series of interviews to lob serious allegations of racist behavior and a cover-up at Warner Bros.
For Fisher, who plays Cyborg in the film, the issue is no longer so much what happened on the set in 2017, after director Zack Snyder was replaced by Joss Whedon, though he's ready to explain that, too. His unrelenting focus in recent months has been the way executives, first at the Warner film studio and then at its parent, WarnerMedia, handled allegations raised by himself and others.
WarnerMedia has previously said that "remedial action" was taken as a result of its investigation but has not elaborated. A spokesperson tells THR that for privacy and legal reasons, "our policy is to not publicly disclose the findings or the results of an investigation."
Katherine Forrest, a former federal judge who conducted the WarnerMedia probe, tells THR in a statement that in interviews with more than 80 witnesses, she found "no credible support for claims of racial animus" or racial "insensitivity." A WarnerMedia spokesperson notes that the company "made extraordinary effort to accommodate Mr. Fisher's concerns about the investigation and to ensure its fullness and fairness" and has "complete confidence in the investigation process and [Forrest's] conclusions."
Fisher was raised by a single mother and his grandmother in Lawnside, New Jersey — a community that he notes was the first self-governing Black municipality north of the Mason-Dixon Line. He says he felt a new sense of urgency to speak out when the pandemic hit and the Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets.
To Fisher, who had few screen credits, playing the half-man, half-machine Cyborg — the first Black superhero in the DC film universe — was both a huge career break and a major responsibility. (Justice League was released in 2017, the year before Marvel broke ground with Black Panther.) He was mindful that the film was overseen almost entirely by white executives and filmmakers.
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment
Fisher as Cyborg.
While Fisher has dropped details and named names, outsiders have struggled to understand: How did Whedon incur his anger? Did Fisher really decline to participate in an investigation that was launched in response to his own complaints, as Warners claimed in September? Was Fisher fighting a righteous battle or a quixotic one when he set out on a path that appears to have cost him a place in the DC film universe?
Now, in many hours of conversation, Fisher tells his side. Much of his previous reluctance to spell out the story, he says, arose because he didn't — and still doesn't — want to expose the identities of others who shared their stories with him and investigators. "I'm not looking to have any witnesses lose their jobs," he says.
Those include some who wouldn't seem to have any worries about job security: Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa. Others who were not involved with Justice League also spoke to Fisher and in some cases the investigators about experiences with Whedon and with Geoff Johns, who was co-chairman of DC Films and a producer on the film. They include Charisma Carpenter, who recently wrote on social media of Whedon's alleged abusiveness on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and individuals who had worked with Johns on Syfy's Krypton.
Fisher got Warners to start an investigation, more than two years after the first version of the film was released. But he soon found the process to be suspicious. The studio and its parent company seemed to be focused on protecting top executives, he says. The process moved in starts and stops, and when he felt forced to ramp up his public protest, the studio responded with what Fisher calls a deliberate smear. Warners maintains it has done everything necessary to address Fisher's concerns. He still wants an apology.
Ray Fisher/@ray8fisher
Fisher took to Twitter in June 2020 to accuse director Joss Whedon of abusive behavior on the 'Justice League' set.
***
In May 2017, Fisher was walking into a movie in New York when he got a call from Zack Snyder that left him stunned: Snyder was leaving Justice League, citing his daughter's suicide. Sources say Snyder was under enormous pressure at the time. The studio was unhappy with the reception and box office performance of his previous film, the bleak Batman v. Superman, and — with Justice League footage already shot — now insisted on a lighter touch. Warners also asked Snyder to produce a two-hour cut that he had a wrenching time delivering, though eventually did. Ultimately Snyder left, and Whedon — who had written and directed Marvel's The Avengers and had already been brought in to help brighten Justice League's tone — took the helm.
The Justice League that Fisher had signed up for was a far cry from the film that Whedon ended up finishing. Snyder had Fisher talk at length with screenwriter Chris Terrio before there was even a script. "Zack and I always considered Cyborg's story to be the heart of the movie," Terrio tells THR. "He has the most pronounced character arc of any of the heroes," beginning from a place of despair and ending with a feeling that "he is whole and that he is loved." And Terrio says he and Snyder took the portrayal of the first Black superhero in the DC film universe "very seriously," adding, "With a white writer and white director, we both thought having the perspective of an actor of color was really important. And Ray is really good with story and character, so he became a partner in creating Victor," referring to the character's given name.
When new filming proceeded under Whedon, says Fisher, he came to feel that he had "to explain some of the most basic points of what would be offensive to the Black community."
After Fisher's reps were told that Whedon planned to make major revisions to the film, he flew from New Jersey to meet with the filmmaker in L.A. When the two met at a bar, Fisher says, Whedon "was tiptoeing around the fact that everything was changing." As he left the meeting, Fisher was handed the revised script, which he read twice on the plane back. Gone was Cyborg's traumatic backstory — his relationship with his mother, whose loving scenes with her son were eliminated, as was the accident that killed her and led to his transformation (the material was later restored in the Snyder Cut version of the film that streamed on HBO Max). "It represents that his parents are two genius-level Black people," Fisher says. "We don't see that every day."
Whedon sent out an email asking for questions, comments or "fulsome praise," but Fisher says it became clear: "All he was looking for was the fulsome praise." Trying to strike a jocular tone, Fisher responded that he mourned the loss of the Cyborg material but was moving on. He said he had notes to avoid issues in terms of representation of the character. But in a call with Whedon, Fisher says he had barely started to talk when the filmmaker cut him off. "It feels like I'm taking notes right now, and I don't like taking notes from anybody — not even Robert Downey Jr.," he said. Other sources on the project say Whedon was similarly dismissive of Gadot and Momoa when they questioned new lines.
Whedon declined to comment for this piece.
Fisher turned to Johns, who he says had presented himself as a kind of mediator. But Fisher says his ultimate response was, "We can't make Joss mad." Publicist Howard Bragman, who represents Johns, denies that but says Johns "recalls suggesting that any creative pitches should happen when Joss Whedon was not preoccupied so he would be most receptive."
Once Whedon got involved, Fisher says that Johns told him that it was problematic that Cyborg smiled only twice in the movie. Fisher says he later learned from a witness who participated in the investigation that Johns and other top executives, including then-DC Films co-chairman Jon Berg and Warners studio chief Toby Emmerich, had discussions in which they said they could not have "an angry Black man" at the center of the film. Johns' rep responds that once the chairman of the studio mandated a brighter tone for the film, all further discussions centered on "adding joy and hopefulness to all six superheroes. There are always conversations about avoiding any stereotype of race, gender or sexuality."
Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock
'Justice League' castmembers with Warner Bros. executives at the film’s November 2017 premiere at Los Angeles' Dolby Theatre.
Johns told Fisher he should play the character less like Frankenstein and more like the kindhearted Quasimodo. Fisher says that in order to demonstrate the look he wanted, Johns dipped his shoulder in what struck Fisher as a servile posture. To Fisher, there was a big difference between portraying a character who was born with a disability versus one who had been transformed by trauma. And he felt Cyborg was a kind of modern-day Frankenstein. "I didn't have any intention of playing him as a jovial, cathedral-cleaning individual," he says.
Johns' representative responds: "Geoff gave a note using a fictional character as an example of a sympathetic man who is unhappy and has an inclination to hide from the world, but one whom the audience roots for because he has a courageous heart."
Fisher told Johns it might be one thing for a non-Black person to write a character for a comic, but it was another for a Black actor to portray that character onscreen. "It was like he was assuming how Black people would respond rather than taking the advice from the only Black person — as far as I know — with any kind of creative impact on the project," Fisher says.
Fisher says Johns did not yield. "That was the last creative conversation about anything that Geoff Johns and I had. I knew I was on my own," Fisher says. Johns' rep denies that he ever dismissed any comments, adding that Fisher knew Johns — whose spokesperson requested that he be identified as Lebanese American — "had evolved traditionally all-white DC properties like Shazam, Justice Society of America and others into diverse groups of heroes" in his extensive work as a comic book author.
Justice League producer Charles Roven, a veteran on DC superhero films dating back to Batman Begins in 2005, says, "I fully empathize with Ray that his character arc … was significantly altered and shortened. I've also collaborated with Geoff over many years and found him to be a gracious and humble man. Geoff took it upon himself to put Cyborg in the Justice League comics in the first place and has written more about the character than any other individual except for the creator. He loves the character Cyborg."
All these tensions were playing out during an extremely stressful time at the studio. AT&T's $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, which was announced in October 2016 but didn't close until June 2018, was still pending. Justice League was a $300 million proposition, and it was troubled. Warners had not been able to match Disney's consistent success with Marvel movies. Fisher felt that some of the studio executives' decision-making was driven by fear of losing their jobs.
The tension only escalated when the issue of having Cyborg say "booyah" arose. That phrase had become a signature of the character thanks to the animated Teen Titans shows, but the character had never said it in the comics or in the original script. Fisher says that Johns had approached Snyder about including the line, but the director didn't want any catchphrases. He managed the situation by putting the word on some signs in his version of the film, as an Easter egg. But Johns' rep says the entire studio believed the booyah line was "a fun moment of synergy."
Fisher says he doesn't see the word in itself as an issue, but he thought it played differently in a live-action film than the animated series. And he thought of Black characters in pop culture with defining phrases: Gary Coleman's "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?"; Jimmie Walker's "Dy-no-mite!" As no one else in the film had a catchphrase, he says, "It seemed weird to have the only Black character say that."
With reshoots underway, Fisher says Whedon raised the issue again: "Geoff tells me Cyborg has a catchphrase," he told him. Fisher says he expressed his objections and it seemed the matter was dropped — until Berg, the co-chairman of DC Films and a producer on the project, took him to dinner.
"This is one of the most expensive movies Warners has ever made," Berg said, according to Fisher. "What if the CEO of AT&T has a son or daughter, and that son or daughter wants Cyborg to say 'booyah' in the movie and we don't have a take of that? I could lose my job." Fisher responded that he knew if he filmed the line, it would end up in the movie. And he expressed skepticism that the film's fate rested on Cyborg saying "booyah."
But he shot the take. As he arrived on set, he says, Whedon stretched out his arms and said a line from Hamlet in a mocking tone: "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you." Fisher replied, "Joss — don't. I'm not in the mood." As he left the set after saying just that one phrase for the cameras, he says, Whedon called out, "Nice work, Ray."
***
Even before that line was shot, Fisher's agent had called Warner film studio chief Emmerich to raise concerns about what was happening on set. After Fisher arrived in Los Angeles for additional photography in summer 2017, Johns asked him to come to the DC offices in Burbank. When they met in a conference room, Fisher said he had apologized to Whedon for his part in the conflict, which he had done in the hope of preventing a real rupture with the DC team. Johns responded that having agents call Emmerich was "just not cool." Fisher recalls: "He said, 'I consider us to be friends' — which he knew we were not — 'and I just don't want you to make a bad name for yourself in the business.' " Fisher took that as a threat. Johns' rep says he never made a threat but told Fisher that creative differences were not normally taken to the head of a film studio by an actor's agent.
Fisher was not the only Justice League star who was unhappy. Sources say Whedon clashed with all the stars of the film, including Jeremy Irons. And one Justice League star ended up taking her complaints not only to the head of the film studio but also to the chairman of Warner Bros. A knowledgeable source says Gadot had multiple concerns with the revised version of the film, including "issues about her character being more aggressive than her character in Wonder Woman. She wanted to make the character flow from one movie to the next."
The biggest clash, sources say, came when Whedon pushed Gadot to record lines she didn't like, threatened to harm Gadot's career and disparaged Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins. While Fisher declines to discuss any of what transpired with Gadot, a witness on the production who later spoke to investigators says that after one clash, "Joss was bragging that he's had it out with Gal. He told her he's the writer and she's going to shut up and say the lines and he can make her look incredibly stupid in this movie."
A knowledgeable source says Gadot and Jenkins went to battle, culminating in a meeting with then-Warners chairman Kevin Tsujihara. Asked for comment, Gadot says in a statement: "I had my issues with [Whedon] and Warner Bros. handled it in a timely manner."
Three months after Justice League hit theaters, Whedon exited Warners' Batgirl project. "Batgirl is such an exciting project, and Warners/DC such collaborative and supportive partners, that it took me months to realize I really didn't have a story," he said at the time.
When Justice League opened in November 2017, the film was panned — it has a 40 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes — and grossed a disappointing $658 million worldwide. Berg exited his job that December; Johns departed the following June.
But Whedon was still part of the WarnerMedia universe: In July 2018, a few months after he left Batgirl, HBO greenlighted his drama The Nevers straight to series. But in November 2020 — just a couple of weeks before WarnerMedia said it had taken "remedial steps" after its investigation into Justice League — Whedon left that project, too. (HBO chief Casey Bloys has said there were no complaints about Whedon's behavior on that series.) This time Whedon said he was not up to "the physical challenges of making such a huge show during a global pandemic." Warners issued a clipped "We have parted ways with Joss Whedon."
***
After Justice League, Fisher went on to play Mahershala Ali's son in the third season of True Detective, which he calls "a great experience." But in the coming months, he would hear fresh reports about what had gone on behind the scenes on Justice League, including the "angry Black man" conversation and other allegations involving Johns: Two individuals who worked on Syfy's Krypton TV series talked to Fisher about events that had taken place on the series.
Courtesy of HBO
Fisher (left) and Mahershala Ali in 'True Detective.'
Multiple sources tell THR that the show's creators were passionate about doing some nontraditional casting and that Regé-Jean Page, who would go on to become a breakout star of Bridgerton, had auditioned for the role of Superman's grandfather. But Johns, who was overseeing the project, said Superman could not have a Black grandfather. The creators also wanted to make one superhero character, Adam Strange, gay or bisexual. But sources say Johns vetoed the idea.
"Geoff celebrates and supports LGTBQ characters, including Batwoman, who in 2006 was re-introduced as LGBTQ in a comic-book series co-written by Johns," says Johns' rep in an email. Johns also pitched Warners on developing a television show around the first LGBTQ lead DC superhero television series, he adds. As for the role of Superman's grandfather, the rep says Johns believed fans expected the character to look like a young Henry Cavill.
Several sources who spoke to Fisher around this time were willing to talk to a Warners investigator. Among them was writer Nadria Tucker, who tweeted Feb. 24: "I haven't spoken to Geoff Johns since the day on Krypton when he tried to tell me what is and is not a Black thing." Tucker tells THR that Johns objected when a Black female character's hairstyle was changed in scenes that took place on different days. "I said Black women, we tend to change our hair frequently. It's not weird, it's a Black thing," she says. "And he said, 'No, it's not.' "
Courtesy of Syfy’s
From left: Colin Salmon, Killian Coyle and Cameron Cuffe in Syfy’s 'Krypton,' which Geoff Johns oversaw.
Johns' spokesperson says: "What were standard continuity notes for a scene are being spun in a way that are not only personally offensive to Geoff, but to the people that know who he is, know the work he's done and know the life he lives, as Geoff has personally seen firsthand the painful effects of racial stereotypes concerning hair and other cultural stereotypes, having been married to a Black woman who he was with for a decade and with his second wife, who is Asian American, as well as his son who is mixed race."
By late June 2020, Fisher went public with his dissatisfaction at what he viewed as Warners' inaction. For their part, Warners sources contend that Fisher was being manipulated by Snyder, who hoped to reclaim control of the DC film universe.
Fisher says that "the assertion that a Black man would not have his own agency is just as racist as the conversations [Warners leadership] was having about the Justice League reshoots. I've been underestimated at every turn during this process and that is what has led us to this point. Had they taken me as seriously as they should have from the beginning, they would not have made as many foolish mistakes as they did in the process." Snyder denies any role in influencing Fisher.
Tweeting footage of himself praising Whedon at Comic-Con in 2017, Fisher wrote, "I'd like to take a moment to forcefully retract every bit of this statement." (His earlier words had been based on studio-supplied talking points, he says.) In a subsequent tweet, he said Whedon's on-set behavior had been "gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable," adding, "He was enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg." He did not elaborate.
Berg told Variety it was "categorically untrue that we enabled any unprofessional behavior." He added that Fisher was upset about saying "booyah," "a well-known saying of Cyborg in the animated series."
As Fisher continued to air grievances on social media and in some interviews, he began to suspect that when he tweeted, the studio would put out an announcement to distract from his message. On July 1 — the day that Fisher tweeted about Whedon's behavior — Deadline published an exclusive saying Warners was making a live-action Frosty the Snowman movie with Aquaman star Jason Momoa "voicing the iconic snowman." A few weeks later, Momoa pushed back in an Instagram post. "I just think it's fucked up that people released a fake Frosty announcement without my permission to try to distract from Ray Fisher speaking up about the shitty way we were treated on Justice League reshoots," he wrote. "Serious stuff went down. It needs to be investigated and people need to be held accountable." (Warners says the "Untitled Snowman Comedy" remains in development.)
In early July, Fisher spoke with Walter Hamada, who had taken the reins at DC Films. He says Hamada "called Joss an asshole," and said, "I'm just looking to get past anything to do with Justice League. Joss isn't here anymore and I don't plan on hiring him again." But according to Fisher, Hamada said he did not believe Johns had done anything wrong. "I don't know Jon Berg very well. I know Joss was difficult. But Geoff — Ray, he's really getting dragged through the mud and I'm sure you're getting your share of hate, too." Fisher responded, "I'm fine with the hate because I know I'm telling the truth." He asked for an investigation.
Photographed By Imani Khayyam
Later that month, the studio's HR department contacted Fisher; he says he spoke with two executives for about two hours. He adds that he offered specific allegations of abusive behavior toward himself and others, and provided the names of some witnesses willing to be contacted. But he was wary, cognizant that HR departments are often known to show more allegiance to employers than to complaining parties. He became even more suspicious, he says, when witnesses started telling him they had not been contacted. Fisher requested an independent investigator and asked SAG-AFTRA to have a rep with him in the process.
In mid-August, a Warners HR exec told Fisher that an outside investigator had been approved. But his guard went up when the exec said, "We really like him. We've worked with him before." Still, Fisher tweeted that this represented "a MASSIVE step forward!"
But then a Warners veteran told Fisher not to trust the investigation if a particular studio exec was overseeing it because that person had previously helped sweep misconduct under the rug. When he spoke to the investigator, Fisher asked how many times he had worked for the studio. He declined to answer. Fisher asked who was overseeing the inquiry and said he would have an issue if it was the executive named by his contact; he still got no answer. Feeling that the situation felt "pretty dodgy," Fisher went no further.
On Aug. 26, the investigator provided a name, citing an attorney in the general counsel's office. When Fisher looked at the WarnerMedia website, he found this individual was the only Black attorney whose headshot was visible.
And in fact, that lawyer had nothing to do with the investigation. (She handled matters for HBO, HBO Max, TBS and TNT.) Fisher wondered if naming her had been a simple mistake or a ploy to lull him "into a sense of security with the idea that she might be on the same team as me simply by way of her being a Black person."
Feeling ever more distrustful, Fisher continued to tweet, writing on Sept. 4 that Hamada had thrown Whedon and Berg "under the bus" while covering for Johns. "Unfortunately, it's not until I start talking about people specifically that the needle starts to move," he says. "If they were going to continue to try to cover things up — I wasn't going to let that happen."
Fisher then got a call from Berg, who said he was sorry the actor had an "appalling experience" on Justice League and he hadn't been able to help. Acknowledging that "a bunch of straight white men" had been running things, he said he hoped the studio would improve on that in the future. Berg said he had spoken to the investigator at length and truthfully. "I let him know that it did mean a lot," Fisher says. "I'm not beyond forgiveness when it comes to this kind of stuff. It was a very big thing for him to do. No one else in the process has reached out at all."
The studio, meanwhile, defended itself that day in a statement: "At no time did Mr. Hamada ever 'throw anyone under the bus,' as Mr. Fisher has falsely claimed, or render any judgments about the Justice League production, in which Mr. Hamada had no involvement." The company said Fisher had refused "multiple" attempts by the investigator to contact him. Fisher saw that as a smear.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images; Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images; Joshua Blanchard/Getty Images
From left: Jon Berg, Joss Whedon and Geoff Johns steered 'Justice League' after helmer Zack Snyder departed.
In early October, top WarnerMedia execs spoke with Fisher and his team, including a rep from SAG-AFTRA. (Fisher's reps confirm the content of the call.) When Fisher pressed the question of how the investigator had come to provide the name of an in-house attorney who had nothing to do with the inquiry, a WarnerMedia executive on the call responded that the investigator had "just pulled the name off the internet."
Christy Haubegger — head of communications at WarnerMedia and the company's top inclusion officer — said the studio's statement that Fisher had refused to cooperate with the investigation had been based on "third-hand" information. The studio's communications department had been "responding emotionally" to Fisher's public allegations against Hamada, she said, adding, "I think they believed what they were saying was true." Fisher wondered why anyone at the studio, which was ostensibly the subject of the investigation, would comment at all.
Pressed by Fisher, Haubegger declined to say who at the studio had approved the statement, but she said she was "furious" when she read it. "I have made it 100 percent crystal clear to everyone in the entire Warner Bros. communications organization that not a goddamn word can be said about Ray Fisher," Haubegger said. "If I catch anyone doing that, they're fired."
Fisher says he asked for an apology repeatedly in the weeks that followed. WarnerMedia kicked around some language that he felt fell short. Ultimately, Haubegger told Fisher, "I don't think that if people said something they believed was true that there's an apology needed."
After the studio put out the statement accusing him of not cooperating, what Fisher calls "the hit piece," he asked for another investigator. WarnerMedia agreed to bring in Forrest, who they told him had handled the investigation of ousted CEO Tsujihara. Fisher was initially optimistic but says he again turned wary when Forrest, who is white, led with the fact that she was an Obama appointee. Still, Fisher was somewhat optimistic because he believed Forrest's previous Tsujihara investigation had exposed alleged misconduct. But she told him that she hadn't completed that inquiry before Tsujihara left. Instead, he left after THR published an article about his entanglement with aspiring actress Charlotte Kirk.
Initially, Fisher was told Forrest would work alongside the original investigator. He objected and the original investigator withdrew.
In December, Fisher says that he and his SAG-AFTRA rep had a final conversation with Forrest during which she said remedial action had been taken, some of which she said Fisher had probably seen, but she was not explicit. She said further remedial action would be taken but again did not offer specifics. But she told Fisher she did not find evidence of racial animus. (Warner Bros. chairman Ann Sarnoff said in a recent interview that the investigator found "the cuts made in the Joss Whedon version of Justice League were not racially motivated," but Forrest didn't say that publicly.) To Fisher, the information Forrest shared was so limited that it seemed the purpose was clear: "She was only authorized by WarnerMedia to attempt to explain away anything to do with race." Warners maintains it has "complete confidence in the investigation process and her conclusions."
On the evening of Dec. 11, Warners issued a statement saying the investigation was finished in what Fisher calls "a Friday night news dump." Witnesses contacted him asking what had happened, but he had no answers. A week later, he pressed Haubegger and other execs for more information. They asked him to provide names of anyone who had told him they hadn't gotten closure. Fisher said he would not provide witnesses.
In February, he tweeted that Hamada was "the most dangerous kind of enabler" who had shown that he would "blindly cover for his colleagues" and had worked with the studio to "destroy a Black man's credibility, and publicly delegitimize a very serious investigation, with lies in the press." (Fisher says he was referring to the September statement that Fisher had refused to cooperate with the investigation, which he feels Hamada must have known about in advance.)
The company responded with a statement from Forrest saying Hamada was "credible and forthcoming" and "did nothing that impeded or interfered" with the company's investigation. Fisher believes this missed the bigger picture: While he accused Hamada of "undermining" and "tampering" with the investigation in a series of tweets, he says these were specifically in reference to the conversation he had with Hamada in which the executive tried to dissuade Fisher from pursuing his grievances against Johns. Fisher does not, he says, believe that Hamada otherwise actively tried to interfere with the investigation. Sources at the studio, however, point to Fisher's tweets as evidence of shifting grudges and a lack of credibility.
Before things had gone sour, Fisher was expected to play a supporting role as Cyborg in the planned movie The Flash. In June 2020, Fisher says he had a call with director Andy Muschietti that seemed positive, but the discussion hit a snag when Warners framed a two-week shoot as a "cameo," offering only a fraction of what Fisher says he should have been paid for reappearing as Cyborg. By late September, he was upset by press reports that he was demanding to double his pay.
Ultimately, the studio removed the Cyborg role from the movie. Citing a Dec. 30 tweet, the studio said, "Given his statement that [Mr. Fisher] will not participate in any film associated with Mr. Hamada, our production is now moving on."
Fisher says he wasn't surprised. "When I first spoke up, I assumed there was no way these guys would allow me to do my job in peace," he says. Now working on the ABC anthology series Women of the Movement, Fisher says he knew the struggle could be costly. "I'm not so indebted to Hollywood that I haven't been willing to put myself out there," he says.
"I don't believe some of these people are fit for positions of leadership," says Fisher, who explains he's not looking for anyone to be fired. "I don't want them excommunicated from Hollywood, but I don't think they should be in charge of the hiring and firing of other people." Fisher knows he's not going to win that battle, but he feels a point has been made. "If I can't get accountability," he says, "at least I can make people aware of who they're dealing with."
Gal Gadot knows this year was rough. She hopes 'Wonder Woman 1984' will end it on a high
Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins discuss the highly anticipated 'Wonder Woman 1984,' pandemic life, and what the HBO Max premiere means for the theatrical model.
www.latimes.com
Shut up nigga! I just spit out my coffee on my laptop!
famo, you wrong for that.
oNE
that boy @ViCiouS don't post often but when he does?
Woo Boy
excuse me...
not in those movies... the tone and writing won't allow it
compare this jlu ep
this little piggy
vs
epilogue
mind you -both of these are written on levels Whedon and Snyder can't even conceive of...
my point is - can you imagine forcing moments made in little piggy into epilogue?
not in those movies... the tone and writing won't allow it
compare this jlu ep
this little piggy
vs
epilogue
mind you -both of these are written on levels Whedon and Snyder can't even conceive of...
my point is - can you imagine forcing moments made in little piggy into epilogue?
you are correct
but I am glad you appreciate that a BETTER writer director COULD pull of SOMETHING to honor the animated series and the live action.
You right again bro.
I believe I had this
Anybody have an issue with Gal saying all this now as Ray's career seems to be pretty much fucked?
Booyah!
What happen to Ray Fisher is a microcosm of what happens to the average black man in corporate America.
It is a different type of racism and it can be so toxic that you will contemplate suicide because you see no hope.
You play by the rules and when you are about to win, they change the rules and make you lose. All the while, telling you nothing is wrong.
Then they cut you loose.
I really hope he has a place in Hollywood after this. It is doubtful.
It is a different type of racism and it can be so toxic that you will contemplate suicide because you see no hope.
You play by the rules and when you are about to win, they change the rules and make you lose. All the while, telling you nothing is wrong.
Then they cut you loose.
I really hope he has a place in Hollywood after this. It is doubtful.
So you are okay with the jewish chick getting all this praise and continue to work, because you feel Ray needed to be a sacrificial lamb because of what now?
He had the courage to speak up in the first place, here backing his story up would not have hurt his cause in anyway.
I didn't say anything close to that.
Not even remotely close to that.
I said not really because people are spineless and they never say shit until the tide is turning and its beneficial.
That's why we praised ray in the first place for having the courage to do it. 1 person had courage the other is on a bandwagon and really doesn't mean shit.
I don't know how that turns into I'm ok with her getting praise and feel he needed to be sacrificed.
Didn't understand what you were trying to say, so I asked.
Meanwhile, I can have issues with how she handled this and praise Ray at the same time.
I don't have issues because I don't respect her and expect anything coming from her. I get your issues they're valid. She don't deserve any energy so I'm using it to praise Ray so he doesn't get washed out in this entire thing.
not in those movies... the tone and writing won't allow it
compare this jlu ep
this little piggy
vs
epilogue
mind you -both of these are written on levels Whedon and Snyder can't even conceive of...
my point is - can you imagine forcing moments made in little piggy into epilogue?
Hmmm. Good point. Is this Bruce Timm on the script? Context is everything bro.
This is something they figured out with Falcon’s persona and his character interactions in the new show with Winter Soldier. There is banter and silly jokes here and there, especially in the promos but the actual script folds everything into context and it works - perfectly.
i have NEVER taken Falcon as serious as I do now that he’s headlining.
Not comparing MCU and DC but you get my meaning famo.
oNE
@2:35:00
@ViCiouS @fonzerrillii @largebillsonlyplease
thoughts..
cause I actually agree with Marc 100%
Cyborg Could Join the Flash Film - If Warner Bros Apologizes to Ray Fisher
Ray Fisher remains open to making a cameo as Cyborg in the DCEU's The Flash film, so long as Warner Bros. apologizes for its treatment of him.
www.cbr.com
@ViCiouS
Cyborg Could Join the Flash Film - If Warner Bros Apologizes to Ray Fisher
Ray Fisher remains open to making a cameo as Cyborg in the DCEU's The Flash film, so long as Warner Bros. apologizes for its treatment of him.
BY SANDY SCHAEFERPUBLISHED 10 HOURS AGO
Ray Fisher is still open to reprising his Justice League role as Cyborg in The Flash film -- that is, if Warner Bros. is willing to apologize for the way it treated him.
"I don't really expect anything, right? Particularly dealing with large corporations," Fisher said, discussing his potential return to the DC Extended Universe at Justice Con. "They will oftentimes find a way to defy whatever expectation you may have. But, I think where we could start is an acknowledgment and an apology of what is clearly, publicly known to be an untruth. Then, we can see where it goes from there. We can have that conversation, but I think that's where the accountability begins. It's us being able to come to the table and say, 'These are the things that happened, let's go ahead and try...' There seems to be this sort of narrative, I don't know why it is, but there's this thing that if you apologize it denotes weakness."
In July 2020, Fisher tweeted that Joss Whedon engaged in "gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable" behavior during reshoots on the DCEU's Justice League film. He also alleged that former DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns and former DC Films executive Jon Berg acted as Whedon's enablers throughout the whole process. The following September, Fisher further alleged that DC Films President Walter Hamada offered to "throw Joss Whedon and Jon Berg under the bus" if Fisher relented on Johns and focused solely on Berg and Whedon. Fisher has since refused to work with Hamada and continued to demand an apology for his actions.
Prior to all this, the plan was for Fisher to play a significant role as Cyborg in The Flash movie. And while that's no longer likely to happen, Fisher said he's going to keep pushing for Warner Bros. and Hamada to do the right thing. "I have to apologize for things all the time. Right? Ultimately, it shows, 'Hey, I understand what the situation is.' I'm willing to talk about that," Fisher explained. "If it's something folks are willing to make the first step on. Like I said, I don't have too many expectations when it comes to that. Because, as we've seen, folks are digging their heels in pretty hard. So, I'm just going to keep pushing. Keep pushing for accountability and whenever folks decide they want to pop their heads up for what I'm doing. I'll be there."
Directed by Andy Muschietti from a script by Christina Hodson, The Flash stars Ezra Miller, Ben Affleck, Sasha Calle, Kiersey Clemons, Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdú, Saroise-Monica Jackson and Rudy Mancuso. The film arrives in theaters Nov. 4, 2022.
Ray Fisher remains open to making a cameo as Cyborg in the DCEU's The Flash film, so long as Warner Bros. apologizes for its treatment of him.
BY SANDY SCHAEFERPUBLISHED 10 HOURS AGO
Ray Fisher is still open to reprising his Justice League role as Cyborg in The Flash film -- that is, if Warner Bros. is willing to apologize for the way it treated him.
"I don't really expect anything, right? Particularly dealing with large corporations," Fisher said, discussing his potential return to the DC Extended Universe at Justice Con. "They will oftentimes find a way to defy whatever expectation you may have. But, I think where we could start is an acknowledgment and an apology of what is clearly, publicly known to be an untruth. Then, we can see where it goes from there. We can have that conversation, but I think that's where the accountability begins. It's us being able to come to the table and say, 'These are the things that happened, let's go ahead and try...' There seems to be this sort of narrative, I don't know why it is, but there's this thing that if you apologize it denotes weakness."
In July 2020, Fisher tweeted that Joss Whedon engaged in "gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable" behavior during reshoots on the DCEU's Justice League film. He also alleged that former DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns and former DC Films executive Jon Berg acted as Whedon's enablers throughout the whole process. The following September, Fisher further alleged that DC Films President Walter Hamada offered to "throw Joss Whedon and Jon Berg under the bus" if Fisher relented on Johns and focused solely on Berg and Whedon. Fisher has since refused to work with Hamada and continued to demand an apology for his actions.
Prior to all this, the plan was for Fisher to play a significant role as Cyborg in The Flash movie. And while that's no longer likely to happen, Fisher said he's going to keep pushing for Warner Bros. and Hamada to do the right thing. "I have to apologize for things all the time. Right? Ultimately, it shows, 'Hey, I understand what the situation is.' I'm willing to talk about that," Fisher explained. "If it's something folks are willing to make the first step on. Like I said, I don't have too many expectations when it comes to that. Because, as we've seen, folks are digging their heels in pretty hard. So, I'm just going to keep pushing. Keep pushing for accountability and whenever folks decide they want to pop their heads up for what I'm doing. I'll be there."
Directed by Andy Muschietti from a script by Christina Hodson, The Flash stars Ezra Miller, Ben Affleck, Sasha Calle, Kiersey Clemons, Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdú, Saroise-Monica Jackson and Rudy Mancuso. The film arrives in theaters Nov. 4, 2022.
‘Justice League’ Screenwriter Chris Terrio Is Super Pissed Off
The ‘Argo’ Oscar winner is tired of being hated by the haters—and he despises what happened to his DC films too.
Justice League Screenwriter Chris Terrio Is Super Pissed Off
The Argo Oscar winner is tired of being hated by the haters—and he despises what happened to his DC films too.
BY ANTHONY BREZNICAN
APRIL 8, 2021
Chris Terrio is not pulling his punches anymore. For five years the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Argo kept his mouth shut about his work on the DC films Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, even as scorn from critics and fans exacerbated already-painful behind-the-scenes memories. Worst of all, he agreed with many of their complaints.
He described the films that Warner Bros. released to theaters in 2016 and 2017 as incoherent misfires, undermined by corporate meddling, poor franchise planning, and tone-deaf decisions that prioritized costly VFX sequences over coherent storytelling. Terrio believes that Zack Snyder’s director’s cuts of both are much stronger, if still imperfect movies—an overall vindication of their work together.
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview, the screenwriter said the #SnyderCut of Justice League, recently released as a four-hour-plus event on HBO Max, righted a kind of cinematic wrong perpetrated by studio leadership that has now almost entirely moved on from Warner Bros.
“The 2017 theatrical cut was an act of vandalism,” Terrio said. “Zack may be too much of a gentleman to say that, but I’m not.”
(The studio did not provide any comment on his remarks.)
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Terrio first joined the DC Universe to rewrite an existing Batman v Superman script because its Batman actor (the director of Argo) had qualms about the project. “I think the studio brought me in to appease Ben Affleck, because they thought, Okay, well, we have this movie star who is reluctant about doing this, so why don’t we bring in his guy?” Terrio said.
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Michael B. Jordan & Serena Williams in Conversation at Vanity Fair Cocktail Hour, Live!
The screenwriter was frank about trying to make sense of the film’s warring heroes, turning their fight into a metaphor for a divided America, while attempting to fix elements he too found nonsensical or offensive. Studio officials then demanded that 30 minutes be removed from the theatrical cut, most likely because shorter run times mean more daily screenings, often resulting in higher box office earnings. Terrio said that act sabotaged the narrative.
“If you took 30 minutes out of Argo, as they were from Batman/Superman, it would make zero sense at all. Critics would say, ‘what a lazy screenplay,’ because the characters don’t have motivations and it’s not coherent,” Terrio said. “And I would agree with them.”
Even the title of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a disaster, he said, that primed audiences to roll their eyes at the film well before its release.
Terrio hoped Justice League would be a better experience. He was very wrong.
After watching Joss Whedon’s version of that film, Terrio was so disgusted that he explored taking his name off the movie. Especially galling to him was the sidelining of Ray Fisher’s tragic hero, Cyborg, whose arc the actor himself had helped craft.
Fisher has been outspoken for months about his experience making Justice League, following years of silence. Now Terrio is doing the same. He said he bottled up his feelings about the theatrical cuts to avoid hurting their casts and crews. Now that Snyder and Terrio’s preferred versions of the films are available to the public, the screenwriter is finally opening up about how it all went wrong in the first place.
COURTESY OF HBO MAX
Vanity Fair: Zack Snyder’s Justice League is now out in the world. How do you feel about it?
Chris Terrio: I am so happy and relieved that all these thousands of artists and craftspeople all over the world finally can have their work seen by the public, and all the work that Zack and the actors put into this can now be seen. It’s sort of a gift that we got from HBO Max, because it wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago.
Can you point at something specific that you are glad gets a showcase in the new version?
Willem Dafoe’s performance in the Aquaman story. Obviously the character Iris West [played by Kiersey Clemons in the Flash rescue sequence] and, most centrally, Ray Fisher’s performance as Cyborg. It was always the heart of the film to me, and just meant so much to me personally, because so much of my heart and life were put into that story. That is the thing about this version of Justice League, that none of it was done cynically or as a money grab, or an attempt to sell Happy Meal toys. It really was personal for me and for Zack and for many of the actors.
Is it true you were banned from the Justice League set?
I wouldn’t say that I was banned. [The studio] attitude was: “We’ll take it from here.” I was frankly shocked when I saw the Snyder Cut and saw how much of the original script was shot. With some small revisions, they shot the script, and I understand that sometimes that was a battle for Zack.
How did you feel about the version that Joss Whedon assembled after Zack left the project?
When those personal touches were removed from the film in the 2017 version, I was silent because I couldn’t really say anything, but of course it hurt. All that remained was a dinosaur skeleton of what had been a great, lumbering beast. It might’ve been a big, unruly beast, and obviously it’s four hours and the movie is maximalist and it’s operatic and, sure, it’s a little crazy, but I think the movie is crazy in the best way.
PHOTO BY CLAY ENOS/WARNER BROS. PICTURES
Can we start at the beginning with Zack? You worked on Batman v Superman. Can I assume that was a good experience, at least with him, since you signed on to another movie?
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Ben [Affleck] called me and said that he was working on this film, which was a Superman film in which he was going to play Batman. So he asked if I would read the script and consider doing a rewrite. He asked if I would do some character work. So it was already determined and storyboarded that Batman was going to be trying to kill Superman and that Batman was going to have gone down a dark road. He was branding criminals, and it had certain dark elements that were nonnegotiable and already in the story.
What did Affleck want you to do?
My job was to create a story and a tone, really, in which Batman could be that person, and in which two heroes could get to the point where they’re fighting to the death.
What was your approach?
I came into it thinking the only way that this could work is as a fever dream or as a revenge tragedy. I thought, How do we create a story in which Bruce Wayne is traumatized by the war of Krypton coming to Earth, and in which he enters into this kind of madness? He becomes Captain Ahab, and he won’t listen to saner voices, like Alfred, for example, who are telling him to just see reason. He’s a man possessed.
So the film was dark by its nature. As I worked on the movie, it seemed to me that it was a snapshot of what I was feeling on the ground in the country, which maybe didn’t become apparent until the madness and division that came about from the last presidency. I thought this superhero movie could be about getting into our worst natures, but then coming out of that into a redemption.
What did you want to avoid?
I didn’t want to make it a sitcom joke that Batman and Superman are trying to kill each other. If I’m going to work on this movie, it’s going to be dark and operatic, and it’s going to be uncomfortable. Zack and I come from very different approaches to filmmaking, but I immediately liked him because he isn’t cynical and he wears his heart on his sleeve. I’m cynical enough for any room that I enter into.
How did things develop from there?
I wrote drafts of the Batman/Superman movie, which wasn’t called Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice by me. I did not name the script. In fact, I found out what the movie was called along with the rest of the world on the internet. I was not consulted on the title of the film, and I was as surprised as anyone. I would not have named it Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Was that Zack’s choice?
I don’t know exactly who named it, but I suspect it was the studio and I suspect it was marketing, to be honest with you. It might have been the first step toward creating ill will for the film. I suspect that putting the words “Batman” and “Superman” into the title had some marketing component to it.
I think you’re right that that title did rub people the wrong way.
I heard it and I thought, It just sounds self-important and clueless in a way. Tone-deaf. The intention of the film was to do something interesting and dark and complex, not quite as Las Vegas, bust ’em up, WWE match as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
“[It] wasn’t called Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice by me.... It just sounds self-important and clueless in a way.”
How did you feel about the version of BvS that was first released?
I was proud of the script when I completed it, but it turns out that when you remove the 30 minutes that give the characters motivation for the climax, the film just doesn’t work. As we learned from the two versions of Justice League, you can’t skip on the character and think the audience will give a shit about the VFX. That stuff was later restored in the extended version. I guess it’s called the—
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The Ultimate Edition, remastered and released on HBO Max this March.
So this house of cards that had been built in order to motivate this clash between America’s two favorite heroes made no sense at all. That was what happened with Batman/Superman. The movie was always was going to be dark. There were always going to be people who just didn’t want to see that version of a comic book world, and I get that. But what hurt was the criticism that the script was not coherent, because when I turned in the script to the studio—which they, by all accounts, were happy with—it made sense.
What was your relationship with Zack?
Good. I have nothing whatsoever bad to say about Zack. He has a skill set that I don’t have, as a visualist. And he has a contagious excitement—that when you describe a scene, he almost can’t contain himself and he just wants to go draw it or paint it. Zack never for a second turned his back on me or doubted my work.
After Batman/Superman, many of my Hollywood friends just stopped talking to me because they sort of thought that somehow I was complicit in this very public failure of a studio film. You learn pretty quickly who your real friends are and who your air-kiss Hollywood friends are. Zack could not have been more supportive and never stopped believing that together, we were going to create this big, epic DC world.
How did you feel when that journey ended prematurely with Justice League’s upheaval?
I went into such depression when the film was taken away and rewritten. But I didn’t even feel entitled to be depressed, because Zack and Debbie [Snyder, his wife and coproducer] were dealing with their family tragedy. Measured against that, losing the film that you wrote seems like nothing at all. But it did hurt. It hurts to think that I cared so much about these characters and worked on nothing else for a very long time.
“A line like that is held as proof positive that I don’t understand either women or journalists or human beings, and that I’m a shitty writer.”
Do you feel like the title, and the cuts for length, made it harder for people to appreciate things that did work in Batman v Superman?
That’s exactly right. The audience has to know that they’re in good hands. The minute that you lose them from a story point of view, they lose the desire to look at it generously. Once the critics decide a movie is incoherent, it’s just a pile-on. Then they attack everything. There’s a line at the beginning of the film where a warlord says to Lois Lane, “They didn’t tell me the interview was with a lady.” And Lois replies, “I’m not a lady, I’m a journalist.” So one reviewer held up this line as proof positive of my stupidity and my inability to write Lois, or to write at all.
Well, the character of Lois in the movie was inspired by the journalist Marie Colvin, who was of course killed in Syria. She was one of the most intrepid journalists who ever lived, in my opinion. And there’s a story in Vanity Fair, “Marie Colvin’s Private War” [by Marie Brenner], and the line that Lois says is almost exactly the line that was in that article, where a Chechen warlord said he wouldn’t shake her hand because she was a woman. Marie Colvin replied, “There is no woman in this room, only a journalist.” So that line was my tribute to her. But then in the pile-on, a line like that is held as proof positive that I don’t understand either women or journalists or human beings, and that I’m a shitty writer.
Sounds like you feel you lost people before they even saw it.
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That was the climate in which the film dropped. Anything and everything was attacked because the reviewers questioned the motives behind the film. And to some extent, I don’t blame them. The marketing promised this mindless fight movie, and any attempt to make something real or complicated was just met with anger and vitriol because [the audience] just didn’t assume good intentions.
“I’ve been working with the director to bring a voice of conscience and sanity to the almost perversely dark film you’ve been developing for years, but I’m the problem here?”
Another complaint was that Snyder’s DC films were too grim and heavy. Did you feel blamed for that?
The studio seemed to take this position after BvS that my writing was too dark and that this was their problem. But what they didn’t mention was that, for example, in the draft of the Batman/Superman script that W.B. had developed—[which was] the draft I was handed when I joined the project—Batman was not only branding criminals with a bat brand, he also ended the movie by branding Lex Luthor.
That ending was a point over which I explicitly went to the mat with the studio again and again. I argued that Batman cannot end the movie continuing this behavior, which amounted to torture, because then the movie was endorsing what he did.
What was your argument to them?
It’s one thing if Batman begins the movie as a dark version of himself whom we don’t recognize, but he has to see the error of his ways and remember his better self in the course of the movie. By the end of the movie, he needs to be the Batman we know, and he has to be ready to go and create the Justice League. Otherwise, I said, what was the point?
What else did you push back against?
I’m the one who had been saying that we can’t make a joke out of Superman raining hell upon Black African Muslim characters in the desert, as Lois promises that Superman is not going to go easy on them because they punched her. But somehow I’m the person with the dark sensibility? I wanted to say, “I’ve been saving you from yourselves! I’ve been working with the director to bring a voice of conscience and sanity to the almost perversely dark film you’ve been developing for years, but I’m the problem here?”
Did you feel you were able to significantly change that Africa scene with Superman for the better?
I removed the punch [of Lois], for one thing. Just think about the optics of that. I was able to add material to the film and asked the movie to grapple with what that [battle] meant, so that it didn’t seem like a casual scene of Superman intervening in this way without reckoning with the consequences of intervention. I placed that in context of a moral question. Superman says, “Think of what could have happened,” and Lois says, “Think of what did.”
That sequence takes place in a fictional African country called Nairomi, and there’s manipulation happening with Lex Luthor and his American mercenaries trying to provoke conflict and frame Superman. After Superman rescues Lois, the film shows the people of that region truly suffering in the crossfire.
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Without sounding too political, it’s not lost on me that much like a drone, Superman sort of comes from out of nowhere from the sky and vanquishes his enemies and then flies off with no consequences. That may not have been an angle on Superman that people wanted to see and wanted to think about.
Did you also add the scene with the character Kahina Ziri, who was a witness to the battle, testifying about the aftermath in Washington, D.C.? Ultimately, we learn she was coerced by Luthor, but her testimony does make the audience, and Clark Kent himself, reevaluate his actions and how he operates.
Yeah, that was added afterwards. I added that scene. “He came down, and then came fire.” The story that she tells, at least in the script, is that he destabilized the entire region, and then government forces came in and slaughtered the village. Since these were the optics that already were in the movie, I thought that my job was to ask questions and say, “What do we actually mean by this?"
Warner Bros.
You’re pushing back against some of these scenes, and you’re saying that the studio wanted these things, but you also had to convince Zack, right? So was Zack Snyder open to these kinds of criticisms?
When I would talk to Zack about some of these things, I think he got it. We discovered that we were on the same page and that he loved the idea of a scene in Congress with this African woman describing the consequences in her village. He right away sparked to that and got excited about casting that character [with actor Wunmi Mosaku, now known for Lovecraft Country] and thought she could be a very important character for the movie. So Zack was quite open to all this stuff, and I thought the studio was too.
Why weren’t they?
Later, when I realized that so much of the plot was going to be cut out, I began to think, Well, they didn’t really want this kind of story. The last things to get cut out always are the stunt scenes and the special effects scenes because they cost so much. By the time they’re all in there in the assembly, enormous amounts of money have been spent on every frame. So when you’re looking to cut time, the things that get cut out tend not to be the big effects sequences or the fights or the stunt sequences. The things that get cut are the...
The nuance?
Yeah. The scenes that actually give meaning to those bigger action sequences. I think that’s a problem not only with this film, but I suppose for all tentpole films.
Given your concerns about the BvS structure you inherited, why did you sign on to Justice League?
I agreed to write Justice League because I wanted the chance to write these characters with love and hope after getting through the darkness of Batman v Superman. The end of my version of Batman v Superman includes Bruce seeing the error of his ways and promising to change. It’s the return of conscience after an ethical nightmare. And in Justice League, Bruce does do better.
“There was a mood of fear at the studio. No doubt.”
After Batman v Superman came out, the critical reaction was negative, and the box office was underwhelming. Justice League was about to begin shooting. What was the atmosphere like then?
There was a mood of fear at the studio. No doubt. My impression was that people in boardrooms started making the decisions. And they were decisions based on arbitrary metrics that had nothing to do with the stories that were being told.
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What gave you that sense?
Right before the time of Batman/Superman, I was asked to attend an event in New York where the cast and filmmakers were paraded in front of a room of investors at the Time Warner Center, I guess to convince them that their money was in good hands.
What happened there?
These guys were in charge because they controlled the money at the very top of the pyramid. They were making big decisions—not the film executives we’re talking about, but Wall Street guys. One guy, who I can only describe as the man who Central Casting sends you when you’re trying to cast Douchebag #1, pulled me aside and started telling me how to write Batman.
I’m not naive. I know that if you don’t want to have any back-and-forth with the money people, then you should write poetry because you don’t need hundreds of millions of dollars. But something about the distribution of power at that time just seemed off to me. It was removing even the pretense that capital wasn’t calling the shots.
What impact did these studio tensions have on your writing?
I rewrote Justice League to lighten the mood a little bit—which became the Zack Snyder Justice League. That’s a slightly lighter, less dense version of the script, which I was fine with. I’m sane, and I will play ball with those kinds of notes.
“One guy, who I can only describe as the man who Central Casting sends you when you’re trying to cast Douchebag #1, pulled me aside and started telling me how to write Batman.”
So Zack Snyder shot your version of the script. What happened after his family crisis led him to leave the project and Warner Bros. brought in Joss Whedon to rewrite and reshoot?
When the movie was taken away, that felt like it was some directive that had come from people who are neither filmmakers nor film-friendly—the directive to make the movie under two hours, regardless of what the movie needed to do, and to make the colors brighter, and to have funny sitcom jokes in it.
Zack told me it was then Warner Bros. chairman Kevin Tsujihara’s mandate that it be under two hours and more comedic.
Yeah, that’s what I heard also. I never had anything direct with him. Tsujihara, as far as I can tell, and the brass at the very top, decided the order of the films. I was not consulted on the order of the films, even though I was the person writing Justice League. They just determined that it was going to be Batman/Superman, and then Wonder Woman, then Justice League, and then Aquaman. So there was never any thought to how the world was constructed before they issued this edict. They said, “Conform to this schedule.”
Explain how that complicated things.
The Wonder Woman script wasn’t even finished when I wrote Justice League. So I had no basis to write Wonder Woman other than Batman/Superman. Themyscira didn’t even exist. I was never shown anything on the page for it. I didn’t know whether people could talk underwater. That was a thing that I had to ask, because I didn’t know if I could do underwater scenes with Aquaman and Atlanteans. It was all just from scratch because there had been no [solo] character films.
So Justice League needed to establish three of the characters; it had to create a long game mythology for the DC Universe. It had to resurrect Superman because he was dead at the end of the last movie. I just don’t know how you could do all that in under two hours. Maybe the 2017 release proved that you couldn’t.
“I was not consulted on the order of the films, even though I was the person writing Justice League.”
Studio copresidents Jon Berg and Geoff Johns were on the Justice League set every day, which was a mandate from Tsujihara, to “babysit” Snyder, as he put it. What was your relationship with them?
Look, I admire Geoff as a writer of DC comics. He’s been nice to me, and it’s a perfectly cordial relationship. As an executive, you get into very thorny territory when you have a person who’s a writer who also is making executive decisions and sitting in the chair where on other films the writer would have been.
So I think it’s miraculous that Zack shot as much of [my] script as he did, because I know that there was constant pressure to simplify, to change, to do whatever it is that the studio wanted because there were rumblings that they didn’t want this version.
FROM WARNER BROS. PICTURES.
Did you have many interactions with the actors?
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I wasn’t invited to the set, but obviously I know Ben, and I got to know Ray Fisher. We developed Cyborg together. Ray came to my apartment in the East Village, and he and I just would take long walks and talk about Cyborg and the responsibility of putting the first Black DC superhero in a movie onscreen. That was a big responsibility that we both understood and took very seriously. Remember, this was before Black Panther. There obviously have been some Black superheroes over the years, but none depicted with such a budget and such scale and in such a mainstream way.
Cyborg is the one character who can’t disguise himself. He lives in his skin. His otherness is a constant fact of his life. And that to me—and Ray and I discussed this—speaks about being a Black man in America. You cannot remove the otherness that people force upon you. And therefore Cyborg—when he becomes the hero that he always should have been and was meant to be, that felt like something really strong that we wanted the world to see.
What about any of the other performers? Did you consult with any of them?
I talked to Jeremy Irons on the phone. I had a correspondence with Gal Gadot where she would write to me and say, “This doesn’t seem quite right for the character. What do you think?” And it was all a really good relationship where all the roles would be bespoke to the actors.
“Cyborg is the one character who can’t disguise himself. He lives in his skin. His otherness is a constant fact of his life. And that to me—and Ray and I discussed this—speaks about being a Black man in America.”
When the Snyders left the project, that was effectively the end of your involvement. Is that right?
That’s right. I would only hear occasional reports about the reshoot. I didn’t realize how much of the film was going to be changed—or vandalized, in my opinion. It became clear as I spoke to various actors that it was a wholesale dismantling of what had been there before. I did not hear from anyone who said it was a pleasant experience.
Were you hearing anything about Joss Whedon and his management of the set?
I probably shouldn’t get into that. I’ve never met Joss. I don’t know him. I did reach out to him at the beginning of the process, through the executives, but I didn’t hear back, which is not unusual.
When did you watch his version of Justice League?
I was in L.A. at the time working on Star Wars [The Rise of Skywalker]. I was on the west side of Los Angeles working with J.J. [Abrams] at the time, and I drove to the studio and I sat down and watched it a couple of weeks before release. I immediately called my lawyer and said, “I want to take my name off the film.” [The lawyer] then called Warner Bros. and told them that I wanted to do that.
“I’ve never met Joss. I don’t know him. I did reach out to him at the beginning of the process...but I didn’t hear back.”
Why didn’t you?
Prints had already been struck or hard drives burned or however they deliver movies these days. The elements were on their way, and to remove my name they would have had to restrike the prints or redo the digital copies, and the film could be delayed. It would be an international scandal and news story. So I shut up and I said nothing publicly. I’ve never said anything about Justice League since then, but the movie doesn’t represent my work.
What happened after that?
As far as I know, I wasn’t invited to the premiere, and I never watched the film again.
“It would be an international scandal and news story. So I shut up and I said nothing publicly.”
So why not follow through and remove your name?
I think it would have created a whole wave of negative publicity that I think would’ve made the situation even worse for the actors, and for all the craftspeople who had worked on it, for all kinds of people. But I’m awfully happy that Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League is the one that is higher on my IMDb page.
Something that was this big and prominent and then so widely derided, it kind of poisons your reputation, doesn’t it?
Yeah. It hurts your reputation, but more importantly, it poisons your soul and your confidence, especially when this other version of the film wasn’t seen.
And now that it has been seen?
People do have problems with this version of the film, and they’ll quibble with the length, and they’ll quibble with the way that certain characters are written. But that I can take, because that is actual critique of my work. That’s fair game, and that I’ll engage with any day. People can quarrel with the movie, but at least they’re quarreling with my version and with Zack’s version of the film.
“People do have problems with this version of the film...But that I can take, because that is actual critique of my work. That’s fair game.”
Did you ever feel like they deliberately made you the scapegoat, the studio?
I am a deeply paranoid person, so I’m always assuming that everyone has it in for me. Justice League, the Zack Snyder version, is the only script other than Argo that I have a sole writer credit on. I really did develop this. So I can stand by this version, love it or hate it.
What are you working on right now? What’s on the horizon?
I won’t talk about it quite yet, but it’s a small film that I am doing with Amazon. I’m getting back to smaller, character-driven worlds where I don’t have any of the franchise issues that have been difficult to grapple with in the past. That’s really helped me to reground myself and to remind myself of why I like to write a film.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity, with some questions added or expanded for context.
Ray Fisher Rips WarnerMedia For Tweet About Derek Chauvin Verdict, Social Justice
On a day when many in Hollywood voiced their support for the guilty verdicts against former police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, one response drew a pointed rebuke. WarnerMedi…
deadline.com
@largebillsonlyplease @ViCiouS @fonzerrillii
Ray Fisher Rips WarnerMedia For Tweet About Derek Chauvin Verdict, Social Justice
By Tom Tapp
VIEW ALL
April 20, 2021 5:32pm
Ray FisherShutterstock image courtesy of Paradigm
On a day when many in Hollywood voiced their support for the guilty verdicts against former police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, one response drew a pointed rebuke.
WarnerMedia tweeted the following:
While this verdict doesn’t bring back those we’ve so wrongly lost, we know that it brings us closer to significant change. We reaffirm our commitment to be a part of the solution by using our platforms… to advance racial equity and social justice.
The rebuke came from Ray Fisher, who starred in WarnerMedia’s Justice League and has repeatedly called out the studio and director Joss Whedon, who replaced Zack Snyder on the film. Fisher has maintained that Whedon mistreated him. On Tuesday, Fisher also ripped WarnerMedia for its statement in support of social justice.
“How f*cking DARE YOU @WarnerMedia?!?!?!” wrote Fisher on Twitter Tuesday. “Oh, now I’m pissed….”
It’s worth noting that Fisher’s note had 2,000 retweets in the first hour on Tuesday and, in roughly the same time, Warners’ statement had 2,000 comments. Most of the comments on Warners’ post were critical of the studio and most had the hashtag “#IStandWithRayFisher” appended.
Fisher has been tearing into the studio on social media since the summer of 2020 for what he called Whedon’s “gross and abusive” behavior on Justice League. WarnerMedia conducted an internal probe late last year at Fisher’s urging and in December announced that the “investigation into the Justice League movie has concluded and remedial action has been taken.”
During some of his battle against WarnerMedia, Fisher was employed by the studio for reshoots on the Snyder cut of Justice League. The current version of the movie runs four hours and two minutes long and greatly expands the character arc of Fisher’s Cyborg.
By Tom Tapp
VIEW ALL
April 20, 2021 5:32pm
Ray FisherShutterstock image courtesy of Paradigm
On a day when many in Hollywood voiced their support for the guilty verdicts against former police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, one response drew a pointed rebuke.
WarnerMedia tweeted the following:
While this verdict doesn’t bring back those we’ve so wrongly lost, we know that it brings us closer to significant change. We reaffirm our commitment to be a part of the solution by using our platforms… to advance racial equity and social justice.
The rebuke came from Ray Fisher, who starred in WarnerMedia’s Justice League and has repeatedly called out the studio and director Joss Whedon, who replaced Zack Snyder on the film. Fisher has maintained that Whedon mistreated him. On Tuesday, Fisher also ripped WarnerMedia for its statement in support of social justice.
“How f*cking DARE YOU @WarnerMedia?!?!?!” wrote Fisher on Twitter Tuesday. “Oh, now I’m pissed….”
It’s worth noting that Fisher’s note had 2,000 retweets in the first hour on Tuesday and, in roughly the same time, Warners’ statement had 2,000 comments. Most of the comments on Warners’ post were critical of the studio and most had the hashtag “#IStandWithRayFisher” appended.
Fisher has been tearing into the studio on social media since the summer of 2020 for what he called Whedon’s “gross and abusive” behavior on Justice League. WarnerMedia conducted an internal probe late last year at Fisher’s urging and in December announced that the “investigation into the Justice League movie has concluded and remedial action has been taken.”
During some of his battle against WarnerMedia, Fisher was employed by the studio for reshoots on the Snyder cut of Justice League. The current version of the movie runs four hours and two minutes long and greatly expands the character arc of Fisher’s Cyborg.
Ray Fisher Rips WarnerMedia For Tweet About Derek Chauvin Verdict, Social Justice
On a day when many in Hollywood voiced their support for the guilty verdicts against former police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, one response drew a pointed rebuke. WarnerMedi…
@largebillsonlyplease @ViCiouS @fonzerrillii
Rinse repeat. Same PR playbook as the NFL. Kill a Black career, then jump on social media in fake support.
Coogler should cast him in a part in BP2. Fuck WB.
@fonzerrillii @ViCiouS @largebillsonlyplease
Gal Gadot confirms Joss Whedon 'threatened' her career during Justice League reshoot
By Rachel Yang
May 09, 2021 at 07:23 PM EDT
Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot is confirming anonymous reports that director Joss Whedon threatened her career while reshooting DC's Justice League.
"He kind of threatened my career and said if I did something, he would make my career miserable and I just took care of it instead," Gadot said in a new interview with Israeli news outlet N12.
EW has reached out for comment to Whedon's reps, who to date have remained publicly mum about the allegations.
In a Hollywood Reporter story from April, which focused on the alleged mistreatment Justice League actor Ray Fisher said he experienced while working with Whedon, a "knowledgeable source" said Gadot also clashed with the filmmaker. In response, Whedon threatened to damage the actress's career and disparaged Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, according to the source. Whedon declined to comment for THR's story.
Discover how three women used the new Lash Sensational Sky High Mascara from Maybelline to create an eye look, and then get inspired to do the same.
Whedon was brought on to finish Justice League after Zack Snyder departed the project due to a family tragedy. The THR piece reported that, according to its source, Gadot had multiple concerns with Whedon's version of the 2017 superhero blockbuster, including "issues about her character being more aggressive than her character in Wonder Woman. She wanted to make the character flow from one movie to the next."
The biggest clash, sources told the outlet, came when Whedon pushed Gadot to record lines that she didn't like, threatened to harm her career, and disparaged Jenkins.
"A witness on the production who later spoke to investigators says that after one clash, 'Joss was bragging that he's had it out with Gal,'" the article read. "'He told her he's the writer and she's going to shut up and say the lines and he can make her look incredibly stupid in this movie."
Previously, neither Whedon nor Gadot confirmed the source's story to THR. Reps for Whedon also declined to comment when reached by EW.
In a statement to THR, Gadot said, "I had my issues with [Whedon] and Warner Bros. handled it in a timely manner."
Gadot told the Los Angeles Times in December that "I wasn't there with the guys when they shot with Joss Whedon — I had my own experience with [him], which wasn't the best one, but I took care of it there and when it happened. I took it to the higher-ups and they took care of it. But I'm happy for Ray to go up and say his truth."
Jason Momoa, who plays Aquaman on the big screen, has also supported Fisher for "speaking up about the s—y way we were treated on Justice League reshoots."
Fisher has been vocal about the alleged indignities he faced on set of Justice League under Whedon and Warner Bros. leadership at the time. He also expressed his dissatisfaction with the company's official investigation into the matter. The WarnerMedia investigation concluded in December, finding "no credible support for claims of racial animus or racial or disability insensitivity." Whedon had no comment at the time but did deny accusations that Fisher's skin tone was digitally altered
www.mako.co.il
Gal Gadot confirms Joss Whedon 'threatened' her career during Justice League reshoot
By Rachel Yang
May 09, 2021 at 07:23 PM EDT
Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot is confirming anonymous reports that director Joss Whedon threatened her career while reshooting DC's Justice League.
"He kind of threatened my career and said if I did something, he would make my career miserable and I just took care of it instead," Gadot said in a new interview with Israeli news outlet N12.
EW has reached out for comment to Whedon's reps, who to date have remained publicly mum about the allegations.
In a Hollywood Reporter story from April, which focused on the alleged mistreatment Justice League actor Ray Fisher said he experienced while working with Whedon, a "knowledgeable source" said Gadot also clashed with the filmmaker. In response, Whedon threatened to damage the actress's career and disparaged Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, according to the source. Whedon declined to comment for THR's story.
Discover how three women used the new Lash Sensational Sky High Mascara from Maybelline to create an eye look, and then get inspired to do the same.
Whedon was brought on to finish Justice League after Zack Snyder departed the project due to a family tragedy. The THR piece reported that, according to its source, Gadot had multiple concerns with Whedon's version of the 2017 superhero blockbuster, including "issues about her character being more aggressive than her character in Wonder Woman. She wanted to make the character flow from one movie to the next."
The biggest clash, sources told the outlet, came when Whedon pushed Gadot to record lines that she didn't like, threatened to harm her career, and disparaged Jenkins.
"A witness on the production who later spoke to investigators says that after one clash, 'Joss was bragging that he's had it out with Gal,'" the article read. "'He told her he's the writer and she's going to shut up and say the lines and he can make her look incredibly stupid in this movie."
Previously, neither Whedon nor Gadot confirmed the source's story to THR. Reps for Whedon also declined to comment when reached by EW.
In a statement to THR, Gadot said, "I had my issues with [Whedon] and Warner Bros. handled it in a timely manner."
Gadot told the Los Angeles Times in December that "I wasn't there with the guys when they shot with Joss Whedon — I had my own experience with [him], which wasn't the best one, but I took care of it there and when it happened. I took it to the higher-ups and they took care of it. But I'm happy for Ray to go up and say his truth."
Jason Momoa, who plays Aquaman on the big screen, has also supported Fisher for "speaking up about the s—y way we were treated on Justice League reshoots."
Fisher has been vocal about the alleged indignities he faced on set of Justice League under Whedon and Warner Bros. leadership at the time. He also expressed his dissatisfaction with the company's official investigation into the matter. The WarnerMedia investigation concluded in December, finding "no credible support for claims of racial animus or racial or disability insensitivity." Whedon had no comment at the time but did deny accusations that Fisher's skin tone was digitally altered
גל גדות על האווירה הבעייתית בהוליווד: "הוא איים לי על הקריירה"
הוונדר וומן הישראלית שכבשה את הוליווד, פגשה אותנו לריאיון פנים אל פנים, לראשונה מאז הקורונה • גדות סיפרה בגילוי לב על האובדן המשפחתי שדחף אותה להעצמה נשית ("איבדתי קרובת משפחה שלי ואת שני הילדים שלה"), על הקשר
What I say from day 1
"The Nevers" is proof that cancel culture isn't really canceling the right people
Contrary to what Donald Glover tweeted last week, cancel culture isn't what's causing mediocre storytelling
www.salon.com
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